


First Family

by Inaccessible Rail (strangetales)



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: M/M, archive warning: campaign manager emma swan, archive warning: first gentleman killian jones, archive warning: president david nolan, archive warning: vague 2020 election blogging
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-31
Updated: 2019-05-31
Packaged: 2020-03-30 21:26:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19035901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strangetales/pseuds/Inaccessible%20Rail
Summary: It's not as if Killian Jones believes his husband to beincapableof winning the presidency (quite the opposite, actually)─he's just not entirely certain hewantshim to. A CC 2020 Election AU.





	First Family

**Author's Note:**

> This particular story is meant to be _entirely_ cute and in celebration of the prospect of having a “First Gentleman” ([see recent Time magazine cover](http://time.com/longform/pete-buttigieg-2020/)). It is not at all meant to be an endorsement of any one candidate, and if you come at me with anything other than love for these two boys and their dog, I will unhinge my jaw and swallow you whole. I developed Jasmine’s last name from a princess who appeared in _The Book of One Thousand and One Nights_ (on whom Jasmine is based, or so Wikipedia tells me). Oh, and another small disclaimer, this is the first time I’ve included Emma Swan in a Captain Charming fic. For whatever reason I used to struggle with including her, but I guess I’m over it because she’s here now. If you think that’ll bother you then give this one a miss!

If the chronically thin, awkward, and punk-ass 15 year old version of Killian Jones could have, _somehow_ , opened a portal in time and space; a feat which might have allowed him to peer into the future in an attempt to witness what the future might hold, he would have likely imbibed several ill-advised shots of _cheap_ bloody rum, and then quite dramatically flung himself atop the rumpled sheets of his perpetually unmade bed. If the younger Jones had even an _inkling_ of the type of life he’d be living as a 35 year old man─with a full time job, a mortgage, a husband, one _wildly_ photogenic dog─he would have done everything in his power to steer himself off such a disturbingly clean-cut, well-behaved course.

“Well and truly _boring_ I’ve become, isn’t that right my love?”

Dave, the husband in question, sat comfortably in his usual corner of the couch, reading glasses perched at the end of his nose, putzing about on their _shared_ iPad, paying less and less attention by the minute, “Oh, absolutely. Can’t stand you.”

★

The only reason he brings it up at all is because he has, somewhat unexpectedly, been rather unsettled by the prospect of a life change so _massive_ , he has had no other choice but to reconcile with the fact that the quiet life he has managed to build for himself could, quite likely, be completely _destroyed_. Forever. Never to be found again. Relegated only to a memory that he’ll return to in his twilight years, a decrepit old thing. _“Ah yes,” he would mumble, smacking his lips together in that way the elderly tend to do, “I remember when you could watch an entire 48 hours of television, totally unbothered!”_

It’s not as if he legitimately _wants_ to keep his husband, arguably the love his life, from doing what he’s meant to, and _clearly_ , the man’s meant for greatness, but Killian has become accustomed to a certain standard of living. He _likes_ (much to his younger self’s hypothetical horror) doing the same things everyday─up with the sun, cup of coffee, walk the dog, go to school, come home, make dinner, watch Netflix, go to bed. He _likes_ weekend drives to the country; hikes in the morning, beers in the afternoon. He _enjoys_ the calm, safe predictability of his life that he has so miraculously found in the wake of a rather tumultuous, traumatic youth.

“Killian,” David insisted gently, “you’re my husband. _Obviously_ , if you don’t want me to do this, I won’t do it.”

The maddening part is that he knows with absolute certainty that he’s telling the truth. David Nolan wasn’t the resentful type─it was something he both simultaneously loved and hated about the man.

“I swear, darling, the last thing I want to do is hold you back,” Killian replied, frustrated with his own lack of enthusiasm, “I just…”

“...It’s a big change,” David finished, “I know. Honestly,” he continued, “I probably won’t even win.”

“Sure,” Killian scoffed, a smirk on his face, “that’s exactly what you said last time.”

★

_5  Y E A R S  E A R L I E R_

“I JUST THINK IT’S FUNNY!” Killian yells over the deafening cheers, one arm slung round Dave’s shoulders, the other waving wildly in the air.

“WHAT?” David shouts back, his mouth turned upwards in a somewhat manic, and what was fast becoming  _alarmingly_ permanent, grin.

“IT’S _FUNNY_!” he repeats, the volume of his voice doing little to bely the patience in his tone. He finds a few of their friends’ faces in the crowd and blows them a kiss, his cheeks starting to hurt with the force and breadth of his own smile.

“WHAT IS?”

Killian couldn’t help rolling his eyes at the absurdity of their attempting to hold a conversation _at all_ at a time like this, but he’d never been one to keep from saying, “I told you so,” when the opportunity presented itself. That said, it was _quite_ the ruckus, and he had simply shaken his head in surrender, silently promising to rub it in at a later date.

★

To be fair to David’s humility, a mayoral race and a presidential race are two _vastly_ different undertakings, particularly when the mayoral position in question involved a municipality of around 100,000 people, which while a large enough amount, was quite small in comparison to the rest of the country. But at the same time, given what Killian knew about his husband, he had a hard time believing that the rest of the country wouldn’t be able to see what he saw─if they were able to get past the “First Gentleman” of it all, that is.

Killian would be lying if he said he didn’t have something of a pessimistic streak. Certainly, it _had_ grown quieter over the years, especially since meeting David (and his subsequent election to political office in a small midwestern city), but the presidential election of about 3 years prior, coupled with the _many_ national tragedies and constitutional crises, had “awoken the dragon,” so to speak.

 

 

> _“You’ve been watching_ **_way_ ** _too much ‘Game of Thrones.’”_
> 
> _“I don’t know what you mean.”_

David _and_ Killian had agreed from the very start─whomever ran in 2020 would _have_ to be and do more than the average candidate. The only way to remind the country and the world of who they really were as a nation was to commit a complete and total act of repudiation with a substantive majority vote.

“You _know_ everyone and their mom is gonna run,” Emma Swan, David’s campaign manager, had joked in the weeks following the 2016 election, after all of their emotional wounds had felt  _somewhat_ soothed. Alcohol helped.

“Ah, yes,” Killian agreed, taking a sip of whiskey, “I can _feel_ the splitting migraine already.”

Looking back, David’s silence in that moment had been suspicious, and if he and Emma hadn’t gotten absolutely _wrecked_ in preparation for an upcoming election cycle that would inevitably last what would feel like a decade, he would have prodded a bit further. In fact, if he _had_ prodded, maybe he wouldn’t be so woefully unprepared for the, “I’m thinking of running for President of the United States,” conversation.

Immediately before the panic had set in, what he had actually felt was _pride_. Regretfully however, panic will-out, and in the midst of his initial tittering he forgot to effectively relay that _initial_ emotion, which was for David he was sure, far more preferable.

In the early stages of the mayoral race, Emma had been adamant on the point of storytelling. According to her, elections were won and lost on a candidate’s ability to tell a story─about themselves, their campaign, their vision for the community─and if David was going to run, an openly gay man (albeit _white_ as they come) from a working class background with little name recognition, the story he told would have to be _good_. Thankfully there was the military record, that usually played well with an older, more conservative crowd, and it wasn’t as if he was a stranger to hard work─the necessity of family, community, the like. He’d lived there his whole life, people knew who he was, however… unfamiliar they were with his “lifestyle.”

Killian had been far more concerned about _himself_ being one of the factors that could lose Dave the race. The two of them had yet to be married at the time, despite having lived together for several years, and while Killian had lived in America for much of his adulthood, he hadn’t been born there. He was also openly bisexual, had a mostly benign criminal record, and had gotten into his share of fairly public tiffs with some less... "progressive" members of their community. One of them had even been _filmed_ ─and gone _viral_.

“Aren’t you the least bit worried about dragging that all back up again?” Killian had asked during their first informal meeting with Emma. The kind of discussion that started with things like, "We're not having this conversation, but if we were," etc., etc.

“After _this_ President?” Emma scoffed, a gleam in her eye, “It’ll only _help_.”

Killian should’ve guessed, after seeing David’s quick, knowing glance, that he’d been found out. That it wasn’t the loss of their current lives that he truly fretted over; his inability to walk down the street unmolested, but rather a deep-seated worry of his own value as a partner. He worried, as he had during Dave’s first campaign, that he would only weigh him down.

★

At some point in the near future, some invasive young journalist is going to ask Killian about the spousal sacrifices. They’re going to want to know, as the spouse of the first openly gay presidential candidate, what do you anticipate giving up? And how, if at all, has he made peace with their new reality? In point of fact, the first concession that Killian had made (up until the whole, “running for leader of the free world,” business that is) was his surrender of the coast.

Killian had never really had roots─there was never a physical home with four walls and a roof overhead to which he could depart and return, over and over again. It could never even be said that he had any people to which he might turn instead; he had a brother, Liam, but they’d never been particularly close, and their history was _tense_ at best and outright antagonistic at worst. All this to say, it was part of the reason why he had given Her up (the sea). Because Dave, most curiously, would become his home in a way he had never thought possible. It was how he was able to make a compromise─to go without the sight of the waves lapping against the rocks in favor of a large, wraparound porch, with some admittedly stunning views of the trees and hills that surrounded their home.

It was where he happened to be sitting the morning after their first casual, "meeting but not a meeting," with Emma; a mug of cooling coffee in his hand, watching Sally sniffing to and fro in the damp grass. It was an otherwise normal morning aside from the impending dose of reality he had yet to fully face. He was in the midst of a perfectly somber and on brand bit of mindless staring when he heard the quiet rumbling of Dave’s early morning voice (a personal favorite of his).

“Hey,” he said, startling Killian out of his ironically _stressful_ meditations. “Sorry,” he said with a laugh, taking a seat beside him on the porch swing, “I didn’t feel you get up this morning.”

“My apologies, love,” Killian answered with a brief kiss, “I didn’t want to wake you.”

There was no crying of gulls, and you couldn’t taste a hint of salt on your lips, but there was still the pleasant chirping of birds; the sight of the sun peeking over the tops of the trees, the heady smell of blooming flowers. Killian cleared his throat, both knowing and dreading the conversation he could no longer avoid.

“You have _never_ ,” David began, very astutely avoiding his husband’s nervous glances for the moment, “been something to be ashamed of.”

“For you to even _think_ it,” he continued, giving a slight shake of his head, “I must be doing something wrong.”

“Dave, _no_ ─”

“Killian,” he interrupted, giving his hand a gentle squeeze, “you are the person I admire most in the world. You are the exact kind of person this country needs to see right now.”

 _A bit dramatic_ , Killian thought, desperately attempting to quell the violent beating of his own heart. Despite having known David for as long as he did, he was still somewhat _overwhelmed_ by the sheer _goodness_ of him. Having spent so long himself in a place of defensive cynicism, it was still a challenge to be so unabashedly confronted by such unrelenting hope. **_That’s_ ** _what the country needs._

“I know it took us both a long time to make it…” He pauses, glancing up at the trees, the dog now slumbering at their feet, “ _here_ , but─”

“I couldn’t possibly adore you more than I already do,” Killian finished, abandoning his cold coffee in favor of framing David’s flushed face, “and I will be there every step of the way.”

“‘For better or for worse,’ blah, blah, blah?”

“Yes,” Killian laughed, pressing their lips together, “something like that.”

★

The secret? Say “yes,” to fucking _everything_. That seems to be the fundamental step when you have absolutely _zero_ name recognition and you’re under the age of 75. It’s Emma’s first rule, and she fanatically _demands_ that they abide by it unless she says otherwise. “Let’s let the paint dry on Fox for a hot second,” she suggests after Killian exclaims, “Surely not _everything_.”

But she damn well means _enough_. Everything from small, independent news blogs run by journalists, to “serious” news media, to BuzzFeed, and everything in between.

“One of these things is going to just,” she snaps her fingers. “And then it’s all over, boys.”

It’s during an interview with a fairly well known political podcast that really sets them on that, “nothing will be the same after this,” trajectory. He’d essentially been laughed out of the room until he sat down at a table with one of the unnecessarily handsome, affable hosts and dropped stat, after stat, after quip, after poignant observation─after some light hearted jokes that proved he wasn’t living in the dark ages.

“And I hate to ask this,” the host began, the hesitancy evident in his voice, “but what _do_ you say to people who argue that you just don’t have enough experience for the job?”

After a brief pause, during which Killian could observe the wheels spinning from where he sat quietly in the corner of the room, David spoke. In that way he always had of speaking. That way that could convince _anyone_ to listen to what he had to say.

“To that I think I would consider the importance of humility,” a chuckle, “I never want to be one of those people that believes they have nothing left to learn, but at the same time, to claim I have, ya know, ‘no experience,’ whether that’s because of my age, or the size of my city, is just… I don’t know, disingenuous?”

The host laughs a bit at that, “You mean to say, what _precisely_ is their ‘concern?’”

“Yeah, I mean, we knew going into this we might create a few… _waves_ ─I don't know if you were aware, but, I am in fact  _very_ attracted to other men."

They left the sound of Killian’s obnoxious and embarrassing snort in the recording, which actually ended up being a good thing. Positive polling based on the sound of incredulity? It was strange, the small details that people seemed to cling to.

“But seriously, and this is what I _believe_ , is that the individual experiences of every _single_ person living in this country makes them… _invaluable_ to understanding how it should,” he shakes his head, searching for the right word, “...exist, or be run. So, these people who are concerned about my experience, it’s not a lie for them to say that I haven’t worked at the federal level, or that I haven’t run a federal agency or served in Congress, but my experiences _are_ valuable, my identity is valuable, and I think it’s something the people of this country deserve to see. Even if I’m not the one they choose.”

The tension at the back of Killian’s throat made swallowing a tad painful, but he had to do _something_ to stop himself from crying, which would be… regrettable (although, once the polling had come out about the snort, maybe it wouldn’t have been such a bad thing after all). Crying in front of all these cool, young politicos. But at that moment, at the close of his _husband’s_ small speech, the hopeful grin on the face of the host, the other people in the room─hell, even Emma’s _radiant_ expression, he locked eyes with David and he knew. _Snap._

★

**First Family**

**Mayor David Nolan and the Rebranding of Hope**

May 2, 2019

by Jasmine Badur

“I’m not sure I truly believed in ‘hope’ before I met him,” Killian Jones, the potentially first, “First Gentleman,” had somewhat reluctantly revealed in one of our early conversations. “I don’t think I necessarily _knew_ I didn’t at the time,” he paused, giving his ear a nervous tug, “but once I got to know him… I certainly seemed to understand what it was I’d been missing.”

I was invited out to the Jones-Nolan household by Mayor Nolan’s campaign manager, Ms. Emma Swan, a woman who has proven herself to be quite formidable in our current political landscape. “If you really want to know him, _them_ ,” she had insisted during one of our many phone calls, “you’ve gotta see them where they live.”

And so, here I am, on a warm, sunny day, greeted by the pleasant sight of a rather long, winding driveway lined with tall, leaf-laden trees. The house itself is also surrounded by quite a bit of lush greenery, which, as Killian explained, was purposeful. Apparently the two men value their privacy, which is pretty ironic, considering.

“Yes, yes, I know,” he answered, unprovoked, “pretty bloody funny.”

The couple’s dog, Sally, runs down the porch steps as I exit my car, and I can hear Mayor Nolan call her name from inside the house. Despite the somewhat grandiose nature of the extended driveway, the house itself is modest, with little in the way of fuss. Both men greet me at the door, and I’m immediately offered a drink or a snack by the Mayor himself.

“He’s worse than my grandmother,” Ms. Swan half shouts from another room, after which _David_ (“Please, call me David”) huffs and playfully rolls his eyes. “We’re like a family here,” he explains, leading me into their warm, sun-drenched kitchen, “I don’t think I know any other way to do this, to be honest.”

“This,” of course, being the campaign. The reason I’ve shown up here at all, to share this historical candidacy with a country that has proven to be far more interested than David expected it to be.

“The truth is, no,” he admitted over our tea, “I didn’t really expect _this_.”

★

A turn about the house reveals a number of familiar sights─a mix of running shoes and formalwear lined up by the door, coats on their hooks, framed photos on the mantle or hanging on the fridge. I note a young Emma in a number of these photos, to which David confirms their personal history, that of being pseudo-siblings, which most people are tangentially aware of, but the way David explains, it has a lot more to do with his campaign than you might think.

Soon after Emma Swan had moved to town to live with her aforementioned grandmother, she had met David at school, and the two quickly became inseparable.

“My grandma was a sweet lady,” Emma had shared, albeit reluctantly, “but she was pretty old. Not really prepared to have a young kid. David and his mom became my family, more or less.” When I’ve spoken to others who knew the Nolans, the stories seem to follow a similar thread. It was nearly impossible to know them and _not_ be treated as if they had known you your entire life.

“That was what my mother believed,” David says, a resolute smile on his face, “ _everyone_ deserves to have a family.”

It might seem an unusual tactic for the candidate to take, but having spoken with Emma Swan, and having spent time with David and Killian in their home, I’m not so sure the harsher criticisms are especially valid.

“He’s a bit inclined to picking up strays, isn’t he?” Killian starts, politely if not vaguely uncomfortable. The two of us are walking through the field behind their house, and truly, it is a _beautiful_ piece of land. “And what are we all,” he finishes, somewhat distantly, “if not a country of wanderers?"

Most people have a general understanding of Killian’s background. Born in London to an absent single mother who passed when he was about 17, a brother serving in the Royal Navy; teaches literature, unreasonably handsome, perhaps inclined to appear in viral videos─“Surprised you lasted this long,” he says, laughing. “Haven’t you lot gotten sick of that story yet?”

Unfortunately for Killian, though somewhat fortuitously for the campaign, that now famous clip, of the man in question throwing an unequivocal fist into the cheekbone of a far-right activist, has earned him some degree of popularity in progressive circles, though he contends he had absolutely no plans for such an outcome.

“It was satisfying _before_ the entire country knew about it,” he concludes, with a blend of both seriousness and charm that can be challenging for most people to pull off. “And I’d do it again in a bloody heartbeat.”

“God bless Killian Jones,” Emma had sighed when I’d first mentioned it to _her_ , “that man’s righteous anger could be the thing that gets us elected.”

Killian himself isn’t quite ready to admit _that_ , but he is glad to help his husband in anyway he can, even at the expense of his own anonymity. Which, he did admit, was a serious concern at first.

“We’d spent so many years searching for this,” he explained, glancing pointedly at our surroundings, the sight of their now smoking chimney peeking over the tops of the trees. “I wasn’t sure I was ready to give it up.”

But now, he says, the doubts seem to have all but faded.

“There’s always moments of insecurity, sure,” he admits, “but I think it’s worth it.”

★

The Nolan-Jones household is cluttered─but not in a way that might leave you feeling suspicious of their character. True, it’s cluttered in a way you might not presume a presidential candidate’s house to be. Maybe you would consider the “right candidate,” to be so obnoxiously Type A that their home be something akin to a serial killer’s lair. If that _is_ what you were expecting, I am sorry to say that his house is very much _not that_. This house is cluttered in a way that our lives create clutter. Like their "family-oriented" campaign style, the ordinariness of their home and their lives prior to this  _event_ , reveals quite a bit more than you might think. We exist in a day and age seemingly  _obsessed_ with the idea of authenticity, and while I've grown to despise the word, it seems to have been given new life here, even though their kitchen _did_ happen to smell of freshly baked cookies during my visit.

At the end of the day, no one knows how this campaign is going to shake out. Politics have never been predictable, no matter what many pundits and strategists claim, but if there’s one thing we might always learn to expect, it is that "electability" is a true falsehood. I don’t know if Mayor David Nolan will become the first openly gay President of the United States, and neither does he, but that doesn’t seem to be the point.

“It may seem trite to some, but it _is_ about hope,” David said in the few moments before I left, hands resting in his pockets, his gaze tired yet contented, “I think our 44th president had that part right.”

In an era of such unrelenting cynicism, it can be difficult to find the silver lining of it all, but as I drove back down the long, winding driveway in the moonlight, the sight of Killian Jones and David Nolan waving in my rearview mirror, my heart felt a little less heavy.

_Jasmine Badur is a freelance political correspondent with Time, BuzzFeed News, and others. She is currently on the road following a number of Democratic candidates running for President, including Mayor David Nolan. She can be found on Twitter @badurjofficial._

 

__


End file.
